Modern Masterpieces from Moscow
19 October 2007 until 10 February 2008

Russian Jewish Artists 1910-1940

From 19 October 2007 the Jewish Historical Museum is
presenting the exhibition Modern Masterpieces from Moscow.
This is a unique opportunity to see a collection of paintings and
drawings by influential and innovative Russian Jewish artists from
the period 1910-1940. The exhibition sketches the rise and fall of
Jewish artists in the Soviet Union during the Stalin era. Most of
the works have never been seen in the Netherlands
before.

Amsterdam will play host to world-famous masters such as El
Lissitzky and Isaak Brodsky but also to lesser-known artists such
as Nathan Altman, Alexander Labas and Alexander Tyshler. The
exhibition presents Russian Jewish art in all its diversity: from
the Cubist portraits of Robert Falk and the Suprematism of Ilya
Chashnik to the Socialist Realism of Yevgeny Katzman and the
non-conformist and banned oeuvre of Solomon Nikritin.

The arts flourished in Russia after 1910. Jewish artists such as
Lissitzky played a pioneering role in forging the new Soviet art
and introduced Jewish art to a dynamic new phase in its history.
However, in the course of the 1920s the Jewish cultural renaissance
was crushed and artists were severely restricted in their choice of
style and subject matter. The State's priority for propaganda and
educating the masses ushered in the heyday of Socialist Realism.
But there were nonetheless artists who prospered under the new
communist patronage and developed their own style within Socialist
Realism - openly or in secret.

Modern Masterpieces from Moscow. Russian Jewish Artists,
1910-1940 demonstrates the great diversity of the art world in
the Soviet Union and the wide-ranging contribution made by Jewish
artists. The works in the exhibition are on loan from the
collections of the State Tretyakov Gallery and the Bakhrushin
Theatre Museum in Moscow.